— 2026 · Product concept · UX/UI
Parisian Guide
An app that connects, in person, visitors passing through Paris with volunteer locals who love showing off their neighbourhood — a real meeting, not a messaging thread.
- Year
- 2026
- Role
- Product & UX design
- Type
- Product concept · UX/UI
- UX/UI
- Design system
- iOS + Web
- Hi-fi prototype
- Dual perspective
Context
Tourists see Paris through the same ten landmarks. Locals, meanwhile, hold a thousand addresses, stories and shortcuts no guidebook lists. Parisian Guide connects these two worlds: a visitor finds, on a map, volunteers available nearby; they request a meeting; they meet in person for a walk. No in-app messaging — the conversation happens for real, or through an external channel the volunteer chooses.
The need
The whole challenge came down to one tension: how do you build trust between two strangers without ever giving them a space to chat? Enough information to decide on a meeting without turning into a dating profile; a way to coordinate on the day when the app hosts no conversation; and two users with opposite needs — the tourist searching, the volunteer filtering — served in one visual language.
Solution
A single journey, from the map to the handshake: find the right person, ask, meet — without ever opening a conversation in the app. Designing both sides revealed the product’s balance: the volunteer stays in control. They accept, they set the exact meeting point, and they choose the day-of contact channel.
Key decisions
Design
- A warm, Parisian art direction, never cold or “tech”: paper ivory, deep Paris blue, a terracotta accent, and an elegant serif (Instrument Serif) nodding to the city’s aesthetic.
- A map hierarchy that puts people first: volunteers get a real round photo with a green presence halo, places are demoted to small cream pins with a thin outline. The map immediately says “here are people”.
Method & engineering
- A single free field, capped at 150 characters: enough to introduce yourself, too short to start a conversation. Everything else is structured — time slots, interest tags, language.
- The day-of channel — WhatsApp, SMS, Telegram, or a “contactless meet-up” mode via location sharing — is chosen by the volunteer and only appears to the tourist once the meeting is confirmed.
- Two points of view, one system: the tourist journey and the volunteer journey share components, colours and rules, with no duplicated design.
- From mobile to desktop, the same language: the bottom sheet becomes a side panel, the map gains a results sidebar, the meeting ticket splits into two columns.
The design
The tone steers clear of generic corporate blue. Serif for titles and voices (quotes, first names), sans-serif for everything functional; soft rounded corners, very subtle shadows, generous whitespace. The goal: an app that feels like Paris — warm, elegant, human — not yet another tool.
Product preview
Outcome
Twelve screens designed, declined across two platforms; two points of view brought together in a single system; zero messaging, so the meeting stays human. The throughline: an app whose success is measured by the time spent away from it.